No Joy — More Faithful (June 16, 2015)
•» Doomy shoegaze quartet led by Jasmine White–Glutz and Laura Lloyd. “Where there is shouting, there is no true knowledge.” (Leonardo da Vinci) Location: Los Angeles, CA ~~ Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Album release: June 16th, 2015
Recording date: October 2014
Record Label: Mexican Summer
Duration: 36:32
Tracks:
01 Remember Nothing 2:28
02 Everything New 4:07
03 Hollywood Teeth 2:11
04 Moon in My Mouth 4:11
05 Burial in Twos 3:13
06 Corpo Dæmon 2:21
07 Bolas 3:24
08 Chalk Snake 3:35
09 Rude Films 3:30
10 I Am an Eye Machine 4:32
11 Judith 3:00
Credits:
•» Rob Carmichael Design
•» Jorge Elbrecht Mixing, Producer
•» Michael Farsky Group Member
•» Kurt Feldman Engineer
•» Garland Hastings Group Member
•» Davey Jewell Assistant Engineer
•» Heba Kadry Mastering
•» Rob Laakso Engineer
•» Laura Lloyd Group Member
•» No Joy Composer, Mixing, Primary Artist, Producer
•» Allison Staton Photography
•» Jasamine White–Gluz Group Member DESCRIPTION
•» More Faithful is No Joy’s third full–length for Mexican Summer. Throughout the album, singer / guitarist Jasamine White–Gluz, guitarist Laura Lloyd, drummer Garland Hastings, and bassist Michael Farsky (formerly of Dirty Beaches’ live band) push themselves to new peaks of intensity.
•» The album bears the fruits of a band that has refined its work ethic in the gulf of time between recording sessions. The outcome — a juxtaposition of unrest and calm, beauty and chaos, truth and fantasy, in the throes of maxed–out amps and hair–whipping guitar goddess rock music — is as unwavering as ever.
•» Where No Joy’s last album, Wait To Pleasure balanced textural differences with the freewheeling novelty of the studio environment, More Faithful documents a much more rigorous creative process and performance. For More Faithful No Joy worked with musician and producer Jorge Elbrecht (Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Chairlift, Lansing–Dreiden). Recording was split between tracking at Brooklyn studio Gary’s Electric and an old farmhouse in Costa Rica.
•» In this rural Costa Rican setting, Elbrecht created a makeshift but nurturing studio environment where he and No Joy did the mixing, overdubs and cut vocals for 12 hours a day. Repairing themselves to an isolated environment strengthened No Joy’s regimented approach to making a record that satisfied their vision.
•» There is no question that More Faithful is the most forward, throttling record No Joy has made, taking their sound to the wall in a brazen display of beauty–laced power. At times More Faithful is heavier than anything they’ve done yet, while also their fastest — riffs shooting upward in discord and drifting down in angelic harmonies.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/nojoy
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nojoymusic
Website: http://www.nojoymusic.com/
AllMusic Review by Fred Thomas; Score: ****½
•» At first, shoegaze–steeped indie quartet No Joy come across as your dyed–in–the wool revival act. Their early sounds approached bent dream pop guitars in dark colors and vast, echoing tones, and 2013’s Wait to Pleasure saw them branching out somewhat and including ethereal influences of the early 4AD catalog in with their warped pop palette. At first, third album More Faithful seems like another incremental progression or re–polishing of the band’s gauze–wrapped approach to pop. Album–opener “Remember Nothing” has the same snare stabs, damaged guitar frequencies, and floating clouds of delay–dripping vocals as early My Bloody Valentine, and “Everything New” revisits the airy Cocteau Twins–styled vocals that first came into focus on Wait to Pleasure. While the songs are pleasantly dreamy, More Faithful's best moments and No Joy's astonishing leaps forward as a band with this album are revealed only through listening closely. What sounds like a blurry web of distorted guitars actually reveals itself as a detailed web of acoustic instruments and layers of multiple guitar tracks in various arrays of tones and timbers. The glowing, nearly tropical tones of “Moon in My Mouth” are where these changes become more visible. •» Apart from the tastefully understated nature of the record's expanded instrumentation, equally hidden in its layers are unexpected production moves from producer Jorge Elbrecht. Half–speed percussion creeps its way into a few songs, and the entire mix of “Hollywood Teeth” begins to slow and warp near the middle, adding a nightmarish turn to an otherwise sweet and buzzy dreamscape. Icy keyboards begin the stoic “Burial in Twos,” and distorted vocals melt into a sea of other brittle, overdriven tones on “Corpo Daemon,” both songs coming away a bit more gothic and brooding for these production choices. While the shifts in sound are subtle, the album as a whole moves slowly through a field of extreme sounds with a deceptive agility. •» More Faithful is a masterpiece for headphones, and more enjoyable with every listen at high, open air volumes, easily offering the best songwriting and aural presentation the band has mustered yet.
Artist Biography by Heather Phares
•» The doomy shoegaze band No Joy began in November 2009, when guitarist/vocalist Jasamine White–Gluz was living in Los Angeles and guitarist/vocalist Laura Lloyd was living in Montreal. The pair wrote songs as long–distance collaborators until White–Gluz moved to Montreal and they could play shows together. •» One of their first gigs was with Best Coast; when that band's Bethany Cosentino said that No Joy was “the best band ever” on her Twitter feed, buzz began forming around the band. The band’s moody, interlocking guitars and ethereal vocals allowed them to fit on bills with bands as diverse as Wavves, Harvey Milk, and Besnard Lakes. •» Meanwhile, Best Coast’s label Mexican Summer signed No Joy and issued their self–titled 7”, which was produced by Miracle Fortress' Graham Van Pelt in 2010. The band expanded to a four–piece and enlisted the Raveonettes' Sune Rose Wagner to mix their full–length album, Ghost Blonde, which was released in November 2010. In 2012, a stopgap EP entitled Negaverse was released while the band worked again with Wagner on the follow–up to their debut. Ultimately, however, the band was unsatisfied with the results and shelved the sessions, opting instead to work with producer Jorge Elbrecht on what would become their 2013 sophomore release, Wait to Pleasure. For third album More Faithful, the bandmembers split their recording time between studios in Brooklyn and Costa Rica. Working again with Elbrecht, No Joy dove headlong into their most intricate and reaching ideas thus far, incorporating expanded instrumentation and advanced studio trickery into their established shoegaze sound. •» http://www.allmusic.com/ Label: http://www.mexicansummer.com/ ____«••»____________________________
•» Doomy shoegaze quartet led by Jasmine White–Glutz and Laura Lloyd. “Where there is shouting, there is no true knowledge.” (Leonardo da Vinci) Location: Los Angeles, CA ~~ Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Album release: June 16th, 2015
Recording date: October 2014
Record Label: Mexican Summer
Duration: 36:32
Tracks:
01 Remember Nothing 2:28
02 Everything New 4:07
03 Hollywood Teeth 2:11
04 Moon in My Mouth 4:11
05 Burial in Twos 3:13
06 Corpo Dæmon 2:21
07 Bolas 3:24
08 Chalk Snake 3:35
09 Rude Films 3:30
10 I Am an Eye Machine 4:32
11 Judith 3:00
Credits:
•» Rob Carmichael Design
•» Jorge Elbrecht Mixing, Producer
•» Michael Farsky Group Member
•» Kurt Feldman Engineer
•» Garland Hastings Group Member
•» Davey Jewell Assistant Engineer
•» Heba Kadry Mastering
•» Rob Laakso Engineer
•» Laura Lloyd Group Member
•» No Joy Composer, Mixing, Primary Artist, Producer
•» Allison Staton Photography
•» Jasamine White–Gluz Group Member DESCRIPTION
•» More Faithful is No Joy’s third full–length for Mexican Summer. Throughout the album, singer / guitarist Jasamine White–Gluz, guitarist Laura Lloyd, drummer Garland Hastings, and bassist Michael Farsky (formerly of Dirty Beaches’ live band) push themselves to new peaks of intensity.
•» The album bears the fruits of a band that has refined its work ethic in the gulf of time between recording sessions. The outcome — a juxtaposition of unrest and calm, beauty and chaos, truth and fantasy, in the throes of maxed–out amps and hair–whipping guitar goddess rock music — is as unwavering as ever.
•» Where No Joy’s last album, Wait To Pleasure balanced textural differences with the freewheeling novelty of the studio environment, More Faithful documents a much more rigorous creative process and performance. For More Faithful No Joy worked with musician and producer Jorge Elbrecht (Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Chairlift, Lansing–Dreiden). Recording was split between tracking at Brooklyn studio Gary’s Electric and an old farmhouse in Costa Rica.
•» In this rural Costa Rican setting, Elbrecht created a makeshift but nurturing studio environment where he and No Joy did the mixing, overdubs and cut vocals for 12 hours a day. Repairing themselves to an isolated environment strengthened No Joy’s regimented approach to making a record that satisfied their vision.
•» There is no question that More Faithful is the most forward, throttling record No Joy has made, taking their sound to the wall in a brazen display of beauty–laced power. At times More Faithful is heavier than anything they’ve done yet, while also their fastest — riffs shooting upward in discord and drifting down in angelic harmonies.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/nojoy
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nojoymusic
Website: http://www.nojoymusic.com/
AllMusic Review by Fred Thomas; Score: ****½
•» At first, shoegaze–steeped indie quartet No Joy come across as your dyed–in–the wool revival act. Their early sounds approached bent dream pop guitars in dark colors and vast, echoing tones, and 2013’s Wait to Pleasure saw them branching out somewhat and including ethereal influences of the early 4AD catalog in with their warped pop palette. At first, third album More Faithful seems like another incremental progression or re–polishing of the band’s gauze–wrapped approach to pop. Album–opener “Remember Nothing” has the same snare stabs, damaged guitar frequencies, and floating clouds of delay–dripping vocals as early My Bloody Valentine, and “Everything New” revisits the airy Cocteau Twins–styled vocals that first came into focus on Wait to Pleasure. While the songs are pleasantly dreamy, More Faithful's best moments and No Joy's astonishing leaps forward as a band with this album are revealed only through listening closely. What sounds like a blurry web of distorted guitars actually reveals itself as a detailed web of acoustic instruments and layers of multiple guitar tracks in various arrays of tones and timbers. The glowing, nearly tropical tones of “Moon in My Mouth” are where these changes become more visible. •» Apart from the tastefully understated nature of the record's expanded instrumentation, equally hidden in its layers are unexpected production moves from producer Jorge Elbrecht. Half–speed percussion creeps its way into a few songs, and the entire mix of “Hollywood Teeth” begins to slow and warp near the middle, adding a nightmarish turn to an otherwise sweet and buzzy dreamscape. Icy keyboards begin the stoic “Burial in Twos,” and distorted vocals melt into a sea of other brittle, overdriven tones on “Corpo Daemon,” both songs coming away a bit more gothic and brooding for these production choices. While the shifts in sound are subtle, the album as a whole moves slowly through a field of extreme sounds with a deceptive agility. •» More Faithful is a masterpiece for headphones, and more enjoyable with every listen at high, open air volumes, easily offering the best songwriting and aural presentation the band has mustered yet.
Artist Biography by Heather Phares
•» The doomy shoegaze band No Joy began in November 2009, when guitarist/vocalist Jasamine White–Gluz was living in Los Angeles and guitarist/vocalist Laura Lloyd was living in Montreal. The pair wrote songs as long–distance collaborators until White–Gluz moved to Montreal and they could play shows together. •» One of their first gigs was with Best Coast; when that band's Bethany Cosentino said that No Joy was “the best band ever” on her Twitter feed, buzz began forming around the band. The band’s moody, interlocking guitars and ethereal vocals allowed them to fit on bills with bands as diverse as Wavves, Harvey Milk, and Besnard Lakes. •» Meanwhile, Best Coast’s label Mexican Summer signed No Joy and issued their self–titled 7”, which was produced by Miracle Fortress' Graham Van Pelt in 2010. The band expanded to a four–piece and enlisted the Raveonettes' Sune Rose Wagner to mix their full–length album, Ghost Blonde, which was released in November 2010. In 2012, a stopgap EP entitled Negaverse was released while the band worked again with Wagner on the follow–up to their debut. Ultimately, however, the band was unsatisfied with the results and shelved the sessions, opting instead to work with producer Jorge Elbrecht on what would become their 2013 sophomore release, Wait to Pleasure. For third album More Faithful, the bandmembers split their recording time between studios in Brooklyn and Costa Rica. Working again with Elbrecht, No Joy dove headlong into their most intricate and reaching ideas thus far, incorporating expanded instrumentation and advanced studio trickery into their established shoegaze sound. •» http://www.allmusic.com/ Label: http://www.mexicansummer.com/ ____«••»____________________________